A federal court has set the calendar for the DV-2027 Green Card lottery, the Diversity Visa (DV) program, after a year without a registration period. On October 14, 2026, the US District Court for the Southern District of California issued a preliminary injunction, a court order that applies before the case is finally decided. Under the schedule the court approved the same day, the State Department must announce the DV-2027 registration period by October 29, 2026, open it by November 1, 2026, and keep it open for 30 days. People whose entries are picked (selectees) must be notified by December 3, 2026, which in practice means the results open for checking on the entry website.
The DV program is an annual draw for up to 55,000 immigrant visas, open to people born in countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The program had been on hold for a year, and the order gives it a date. As of mid-October 2026, however, the Department has not announced the dates, the entry site still shows the DV-2026 closing notice and the DV-2027 instructions are not out. The registration period will last 30 days, so preparation starts now.
What the court ordered
The court ordered the State Department to announce and open the DV-2027 registration period by fixed dates. Judge Jinsook Ohta granted the preliminary injunction of October 14, 2026, in Red Eagle Law v. Rubio (No. 26-cv-4738), a case an immigration law firm brought against Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The order has three parts. The Department must publish the opening and closing dates, the entry website and the entry rules on travel.state.gov and in the Federal Register, the US government’s official journal. It must accept online entries for 30 days. And it must notify the selectees and process their visa applications under the usual procedures until the DV-2027 visas run out or September 30, 2027, passes, whichever comes first. The 30 days are the minimum in the Department’s own regulation: 22 CFR 42.33 requires a registration period of at least 30 days in every fiscal year, and the court made that minimum the schedule.
The deadlines moved the same day
The first version of the order set October 15, October 18 and November 19, 2026 for the three steps. Both sides asked for two more weeks, and the court moved the dates that same day: October 29 for the announcement, November 1 for opening registration and December 3 for notifying selectees, each by midnight Eastern time. If registration opens on November 1 it would run about 30 days, to around December 1; if it opens earlier it closes earlier, so the exact dates have to come from the Department’s announcement. The court kept the power to enforce or change the order.
Why registration was a year late
Registration normally opens in October and closes in November; DV-2026 entries were accepted from October 2 to November 7, 2024. The year in the program’s name is the US fiscal year in which the visas are issued: DV-2027 visas will be issued between October 1, 2026, and September 30, 2027. For DV-2027 the registration period never opened in the fall of 2025. In a notice dated November 5, 2025, the State Department said it was changing the entry process, would announce the registration and results dates “as soon as practicable,” and would keep the visa period unchanged.
No date followed. The lawsuit was filed in August 2026; the court denied an emergency restraining order on September 3, heard the injunction motion on September 24 and ruled on October 14. The fiscal year had already begun on October 1, 2026. That leaves selectees much less time than usual: DV-2026 results came out on May 3, 2025, about 17 months before the September 30, 2026, deadline, while DV-2027 results will arrive by December 3, 2026, less than 10 months before the September 30, 2027, deadline.
Who can enter DV-2027?
People born in Turkey could enter DV-2026, and so could people born in every European country; the DV-2027 list will be known only when the Department publishes the official instructions, due by October 29, 2026. Eligibility turns on country of birth, and the list is recalculated every year: people born in countries that sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years are excluded. The DV-2026 instructions excluded 19 countries, among them Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines, and the only change from the year before was that Cuba became ineligible.
If your country of birth is excluded, two routes remain. If your spouse was born in an eligible country, you can submit your own entry under your spouse’s country of birth, provided your spouse is listed on it and you both enter the United States together. And if neither of your parents was born in or legally resident in your country of birth at the time of your birth, you can claim a parent’s country of birth instead.
The education or work experience requirement
Every entrant also needs one of two things: a high school education, meaning 12 years of formal schooling, or two years of work experience in the past five years in a job that takes at least two years of training or experience to learn. The State Department rates jobs using the Labor Department’s O*NET database (the technical bar is a Specific Vocational Preparation level of 7.0 or higher). Someone who does not meet this requirement cannot get the visa even if selected, and neither can their spouse or children. Our Diversity Visa lottery guide covers the requirements and the process after selection in detail.
A $1 registration fee, for the first time
DV-2027 is the first lottery with an entry fee. A rule effective September 16, 2025, created a $1 electronic registration fee, paid online for each entry at the time of submission. DV-2026 registration was free, so the fee applies for the first time in DV-2027. The Department’s stated reasons are to spread the cost of running the lottery across all entrants and to deter bogus entries. The $1 is separate from the $330 visa application fee that selectees pay per person later, and medical exam and document costs also come after selection.
The passport requirement is back
A rule effective April 10, 2026, requires entrants to give the number, issuing country and expiration date of a valid passport and to upload a scan of its biographic and signature page. The requirement applies to the entrant only; a spouse and children are listed with their names, dates of birth and photos. Three groups are exempt: people with no citizenship (stateless), citizens of Communist-controlled countries who cannot get a passport from their government, and people granted an individual waiver.
A passport requirement applied in the DV-2021 to DV-2023 program years and was then dropped; the new rule brings it back. With the requirement in place, far fewer people entered while about as many were selected. By the Department’s own figures in the rule, DV-2021 drew 6.7 million entries and 87,642 selectees; DV-2024, without the requirement, drew 23.8 million entries and 78,767 selectees. On those numbers an entry’s odds of being picked were roughly four times better in the passport years. Selecting more people than the 55,000 visas is normal: the Department picks extra selectees each year to cover those who will not qualify or will not finish the process.
How to prepare before registration opens
Start with the passport. If you have none or yours has expired, a 30-day window may not leave enough time to get one, and the entry now depends on passport data and a scan. Have the photo ready too: 600 by 600 pixels, JPEG, no more than 240 KB, taken within the last six months, against a plain light background, without eyeglasses. The same rules apply to the photos of a spouse and of unmarried children under 21 included in the entry.
Entries are submitted only at dvprogram.state.gov, one per person; a second entry disqualifies all of that person’s entries. Spouses who are each eligible may each submit their own entry, and if either is selected the other joins the same case as a family member. You can file the entry yourself; the Department advises against using agents, and because selection is a random computer draw, nobody can improve your odds.
Save the confirmation number shown at the end. The Department does not email results; the only way to learn whether you were selected is the Entrant Status Check page on the same website, using that number. The Department also warns about middlemen who hold the confirmation page and demand money for it.
Selection is the start of the visa process
Being selected grants the right to apply for a visa; the visa decision comes at the interview. Selectees file Form DS-260, the immigrant visa application, gather documents, complete a medical exam and attend a consular interview. Every step must be finished by September 30, 2027, and processing stops earlier if the visas run out. With less than 10 months this year, documents that take weeks, such as police certificates and apostilles (the international certification of documents), should be ready before results day.
People lawfully present in the United States have a second route: applying to USCIS, the US immigration agency, on Form I-485 to adjust status without leaving the country. Since May 2026, however, USCIS grants that route only in extraordinary circumstances, and consular processing is the default. Selectees in that position should compare the two routes with an attorney early.
What happens next?
The Department’s announcement will fix the official dates. The government may appeal, and the court may adjust the schedule again. Watch the State Department’s visa news page from now on, and read the country list, the dates and the document requirements from the first instruction published there.
Selection is random, so the lottery should not be anyone’s only plan. Routes you control, such as EB-3 through an employer’s sponsorship, a family petition through a close relative in the United States, or EB-1A and EB-2 NIW on a documented career, each have their own conditions and timelines; our overview of how to get a Green Card compares them.
The decisions, dates and rules above were verified as of October 2026 against the court record, the Federal Register and travel.state.gov. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every immigration case depends on its own facts. For an assessment of your specific situation, consult an immigration attorney.
Categories
